ReShade 5.0 has been released, after 467 years of production (or so it seems).

It’s [MAYBE NOT*] safe to update, your presets should all still work.

* In-game shadows seem to be broken with 5.0. I’ve finally been able to update and test them. I asked over at the ReShade discord and they know the new version works strangely with TS4. They don’t know why, and don’t know if it’ll be fixed. If you’re having problems, revert to 4.9.1 - this is why we make backups.

---

As always, MAKE BACKUPS of your current installation, along with all your current shaders and dll and ini files, keep them labelled with the version number, just in case you want to revert with minimal pain.

The biggest change end users need to worry about at the moment (apart from the shadows) is to the installation process. The installer has been redesigned to be more familiar, and what’s especially interesting is you can choose a specific preset when installing and it will attempt to work out which packs you need to download for that preset to work. If you’re using a preset by some absolute awkward weirdo like me, there are probably still going to be extra steps because I add in extra shaders and so forth, but it’s a cool new feature nevertheless.

What’s particularly exciting about 5.0 is it now incorporates an Add-Ons system. For the moment, you don’t need to worry about that. But eventually people will be producing all sorts of add-on modules that can tap directly into the game engine and do some cool stuff, like replacing game textures, etc. I’m not knowledgeable enough to fully understand what’s possible yet, and I very much doubt I’ll ever be in a position myself to create any add-ons, but over the next few months I expect lots of fun things will be happening and I’ll try to keep myself abreast of it in case any of it is useful for TS4.

Note: The main ReShade download has disabled all add-ons apart from generic depth buffer detection. This is because add-ons can be used to cheat in online games. There is a version that enables add-ons (you can dl it from the bottom of the release post in the forum) but if you use it be aware you may be banned from some online games (the regular version is whitelisted on game servers). Use at your own peril. If in doubt, stick with the official version - it’s all you need.

Some things you may need to be aware of if you’re using 5.0:

→ The shadows bug as per above (I'll update if a fix is found).

→ There is no longer any option to download the Legacy Pack as part of the installation process. GOOD! So many people encountered problems because they were downloading it alongside other packs when expressly advised not to. Now you have to follow the advice I’ve been giving: download the Legacy Pack manually from github, and only install those shaders you need (and all the textures).

→ If you’ve ever needed to access the d3d9 tab in the ReShade menu to troubleshoot the depth buffer, that has now moved. You can find the same screen in Add-Ons > Generic Depth.

→ For those who have updated to 5.0 and kept some of their older 3.x or 4.x shaders, they should still work as before, but if you do get any RED errors the offending shaders will be listed at the top of your shader list so you can easily identify them and decide if they’re worth keeping. If not, just go ahead and delete them from your shader folder. If you do need them, check to see if there are updates post-5.0 from their respective repository (usually found somewhere on github - if you google the name of the pack they’re part of you should find them). You can download the whole new pack, or just the relevant shader, and replace it in your shaders folder. There is also a list of popular shader packs here.

---

I haven’t spent a lot of time with 5.0 yet, but if you encounter any problems I’ll do my best to help. As always, try to give me as much information as possible (saying ‘it’s not working, help me’ tells me absolutely nothing - how do I help you with that?), and screenshots are often a huge help. I have a discord server with a dedicated ReShade channel - I check that more frequently than I check my asks here, so it can be easier to get in touch that way. And there are lots of other people there who’ve been around the ReShade block a few times who can also help in my absence.

---